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Two fast-food restaurants participated in an illegal scheme to get Ohio State University
students to sign up for credit cards, Attorney General Marc Dann said in a lawsuit yesterday.

Dann said Potbelly Sandwich Works and La Bamba Mexican Restaurants Group enticed students to
sign up for credit cards by offering them free sandwiches and burritos.

The promotions violated the state Consumer Sales Practices Act, Dann said, because fliers
advertising the giveaways failed to mention the price of the free lunch: applying for Citibank
credit cards.

Citibank was named as a defendant in one of the two cases filed yesterday in Franklin County
Common Pleas Court in an unusual partnership of Dann and OSU law professors and students. The other
case named Campus Dimensions Inc., a Pennsylvania company that handles promotions on college
campuses.

Dann said credit-card companies often turn their attention to college students at the beginning
of academic years, exploiting their gullibility and spending habits to induce them to take out
lines of credit they may not be able to afford. The lawsuits filed yesterday should discourage
other lenders from preying on students, he said.

"It will have an impact beyond the four corners of that complaint," Dann said.

Citibank spokesman Samuel Wang said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Matt
Revord, general counsel for Potbelly, said much the same thing, but added: "We're a small company
that makes great sandwiches. We're not in the credit-card business."

La Bamba officials did not return a call for comment, and Campus Dimensions declined to
comment.

Both lawsuits stem from promotions that took place at the beginning of the past academic
year.

Last October, according to fliers posted around the Ohio State campus, La Bamba offered people
with student identification a free burrito. Students who showed up were greeted by Campus
Dimensions employees who required them to apply for credit cards to get the free food, according to
Dann's lawsuit.

Also last October, Potbelly offered a free sandwich and drink to students who agreed to
"participate in a 3 min. promo," according to its flier. The promo turned out to be applying for a
Citibank credit card, according to the state lawsuit.

The lawsuits are the fruit of an unusual partnership between the attorney general's office and a
third-year practicum at the Ohio State Moritz College of Law.

Two law students, Christine McClain and Nick Brentlinger, helped draft the lawsuits with
professors Greg Travalio and Elizabeth Cooke, who were appointed as special counsel by Dann.

Travalio, a veteran OSU law professor, said credit-card companies have stepped up their
marketing efforts in recent years.

"We do have a particularly vulnerable group of people," he said. "We are seeing particularly
egregious marketing practices."

Technically, a restaurant would be violating state consumer-protection law by offering free
french fries to customers who buy hamburgers, if the advertisement doesn't mention the hamburger
requirement. Travalio said it's unlikely that anyone would sue over such a minor violation, but the
high interest rates and fees assessed by credit-card companies justify the scrutiny of their
marketing practices.